lõppautomaatid

Lõppautomaatid, often translated as finite automata or finite state machines, are mathematical models of computation. They are abstract machines that can be in exactly one of a finite number of states at any given time. The automaton can transition from one state to another in response to some external inputs. The transitions are defined by a function that maps input symbols to the next state.

Finite automata are fundamental in theoretical computer science and have wide-ranging applications. They are used to model systems with a finite number of states and transitions, such as digital circuits, vending machines, traffic lights, and simple parsers for programming languages. In formal language theory, finite automata are closely related to regular languages. A language is considered regular if and only if it can be recognized by some finite automaton.

There are two main types of finite automata: deterministic finite automata (DFA) and non-deterministic finite automata (NFA). In a DFA, for each state and input symbol, there is exactly one next state. In an NFA, there can be multiple possible next states, including the possibility of no transition for a given input. Despite their apparent differences, DFAs and NFAs are equivalent in their computational power; for every NFA, there exists an equivalent DFA that recognizes the same language. The study of finite automata forms the basis for understanding more complex computational models.